This one has been playing on my mind for quite a while now, it appears to me the mail have quite a wide anti-capitalist streak to them. Not in a socialist way (although they are usually first in line to call for government intervention when something goes wrong), but whenever there is news of a large British company being profitable and successful, the comments are full of 'greedy fat cats' moaning. For examples of this look at any recent story about gas/petrol prices.

You'd think that British companies like Tesco being successful on a world scale would be music to the mail's ears.

I think the mail's anti-capitalism is more of the petit bougeois, Mittelstand kind that displays hostility to supermarkets and those unthinking proles who shop in them, bemoans 'clone towns' and romantisises small traders. The mail normally supports campaigns by people like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver, both the paper and the two chefs-cum-campaigners despise modernity and desire to be away from the hoi polloi and their mass-produced tastes.

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I think there is a tension among right-leaning people about capitalism. You look at someone like Peter Hitchens and how despite his rightist views he isn't the world's biggest fan of Margaret Thatcher, who unleashed the market economy upon us. I think to 'traditional' Tories capitalism is a bit suspect precisely because it enriches chavs and barrow boys and is seen to threaten institutions dear to the heart of the old school tory, e.g. village high streets, family values, aristocracy as opposed to meritocracy.

In the golden age of the 1950's capitalism was very low key; instead of being corrupted by mass consumption, we just made do with what we had with our superb British sense of decency, stoicism and restraint.

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cycloon wrote:I don't think being adverse to some aspects of capitalism innately makes you a snob.

Indeed, and I hope my post didn't imply otherwise. I have a deep distrust of capitalism myself, and although I suspect my reasons are very different to those of DM writers, still I can have a certain sympathy with their view.

cycloon wrote:I don't think being adverse to some aspects of capitalism innately makes you a snob.

Of course not, it's more like the other way round. Many people in the political classes including ministers, journalists and celebrities now display an outright hostility to modernity.

More about Rob's comments, that liking small traders or smaller companies means you don't have to deal with the common folk.

I like small traders too, but only if they're good shops. Small traders can and do fair very well alongside larger brands. Most people in Britain now tend to divide their food shopping between supermarkets for basics and smaller stores for speciality products like wines and cheeses. What the mail and many other commentators appear to desire is a state-enforced monopoly of quaint but innefficient small traders.

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There is always an anti-elite streak within populism, and since I've often considered the Mail to be right-wing populism, it makes sense that there would be disdain for fatcats and captains of industry.

It's middle class populism, nothing else. They've generally always been against big business, in part because many are small businessmen themselves.

As for intervention, most people who support a capitalist "free market" economy tend to only support the market when it's doing well. As soon as the market goes to pot they all run to the government for intervention, then blame it for over-regulating when times are good again.

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There is that, the economic argument, but there is also a school of thought (ironically quite Marxist, yet adopted among pro-capitalist elements of the right) that suggests that capitalism is a revolutionary force that overturns traditions, families and religion in the name of the Great God Mammon, and as such is somewhat hostile to social conservatism.

That would be the Hitchens camp, for example. I suspect while many could not articulate it, that would be some of the reasoning behind the hostility.

Save our small businesses: The eight things that MUST be done to stop firms from going bust

In short the mail want the government to stop small businesses going bust - no matter how crap, uncompetitive or badly run they are and no matter how little knowledge and expertise the owners have of business. Unfortunately tho, they fail to point out the dividing line between small business and evil, fatcat corporation.

Save our small businesses: The eight things that MUST be done to stop firms from going bust

In short the mail want the government to stop small businesses going bust - no matter how crap, uncompetitive or badly run they are and no matter how little knowledge and expertise the owners have of business. Unfortunately tho, they fail to point out the dividing line between small business and evil, fatcat corporation.

Like those the unions constantly wanted the govenment of the 80's to bail out?

'Because we've reached the limits of what rectal probing can teach us'

sven945 wrote:The front page would suggest that they particularly want small businesses owned by attractive 20s or 30s women to be saved.

The caption calls them "small businesswomen". I looked at the picture and thought that even though it's hard to tell because they're sitting down, they don't look that small. Are there companies solely run by little people, I wondered. Then I realised what it meant.